The Visitors
by Beboppin' Betty
Summary: A few rather unexplainable visitors drop in on Rory to offer advice on avoiding wrong turns in her life.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize from Gilmore Girls_

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It was two nights before her graduation from Yale that Rory Gilmore decided she'd finally embraced genetics and gone completely nuts. What else could explain the guy that appeared before her as she went from the bathroom to her bedroom? Because he wasn't just _there_, he'd materialized out of thin air while she watched. She stopped as if hitting an invisible brick wall and gaped at the strange interloper "Whoa -- what? Who are you?"

"I'm the ghost of Christmas future," he said seriously, then ruined it by grinning. "I'm Mike."

Rory wasn't sure whether to stand her ground or lock herself in the bathroom and call for help from the window when this Mike person made the decision for her. "You don't need to hide in the bathroom, I come in peace."

"Excuse me for fearing for my life, but when some strange guy pops out of thin air in my hallway, I have every right to freak out."

"I did not _pop_."

He seemed mildly irritated but harmless, so Rory took a good look at him. Handsome, possibly a couple years younger than her, blue eyes and a face that looked oddly familiar. "Do I know you from somewhere?" She asked reflexively, to which Mike grinned somewhat smugly. "I'm your brother."

Rory blinked. "I don't have a brother."

"Not yet. Right now I'm but a glimmer in our mother's eye."

"Sure." She was beginning to regret not fleeing to the safety of the bathroom. "And you, what, decided to pull a Marty McFly?"

"Who?"

"You are obviously no brother of mine if you don't know _that_."

Mike sort of smiled and shook his head. "I'm screwing with you. Of course I know Marty McFly. Back to the Future," he added, sensing her disbelief. "Look, Rory, I didn't just drop in from the future to talk movies. I came to….give you options, I guess."

"What, winning lottery numbers? Cure for cancer? Tell my fortune?"

"Yeah, that last one. Sort of. Can we eat? I'm hungry -- been kind of a long trip."

_Okay, Rory, think_. Either this guy was a nut who'd broken into her house (_but what about the whole materializing thing? _Trick of the light, surely) or she was hallucinating. Either way, she figured her best bet was to keep him talking until she could figure out his motives and a plan. "Um, sure. Kitchen's this way." She was careful not to touch him as she passed and cursed Logan with the fire of a thousand suns for being away on a business trip until the next day. "Help yourself," she offered and sat herself at the counter. "So how long a trip?" She asked casually (and more than a little curiously).

"What?" Mike asked, his head in the fridge. Rory repeated her question. "You said it was a long trip. How long?" Mike surfaced with the leftover spaghetti from two nights ago and popped it in the microwave. "'Bout twenty years. How does this thing work?" Rory cocked a brow, then remembered that he was supposed to be from the _future_, and they obviously didn't have primitive microwaves twenty years from now.

"Okay, so let's say that you're on the level," she began as he tucked into his meal. "What 'options' have you come to give me?"

"I came to tell you not to marry Logan."

She was silenced for a moment from sheer surprise before finding her voice. "Excuse me?"

"He's going to propose this weekend, after your graduation. Say no."

"I-"

"Seriously, Ror," he put the spaghetti aside and leaned on the counter across from her so their eyes could meet. "If you say yes; if you marry him, your life is over." Rory jumped to her feet, still shocked but quickly becoming angry. "I don't know who you are, or how you got in here, but you have no right to dictate my life!" Mike stared at her intently for a second before bursting out in laughter.

"What?!" She demanded. "How is that funny?"

"It's not," he assured her quickly and took a large step backwards. "Don't hit me. It's not funny, it's just so you."

She glared furiously at him for a long minute before crossing her arms. "How do you know he's going to propose?" She asked defensively. Serious again, Mike picked up his abandoned spaghetti. "Because I'm your brother, dummy."

"You realize that I don't believe you, right?"

He rolled his eyes. "Duh. I'm not an idiot, Rory, which is why I brought proof." He dug in his back pocket and pulled out a photograph. She snatched it from him when he offered and hated herself for the surprise she felt upon seeing Lorelai and Christopher's (older) faces grinning back at her from either side of the image of the guy eating her spaghetti. "My eighteenth birthday," he explained. "Hell of a party."

"Get shut down?" She asked begrudgingly, fighting the smile the question came with. He grinned. "Yup. My friends were totally hot for Mom after that. None of theirs ever let them have parties, let alone throw one that the cops shut down."

"The Lorelai Gilmore special," she agreed. "Okay, I'm not saying I believe you at all, but I'm not going to bash you with the pool cue like I planned."

"Good to know. That's why you're my favourite sister -- Gigi would have skewered me first, asked questions later."

"Gigi?" Now that she was over her fear of the guy, this night was becoming ridiculously interesting. Mike nodded with a bit of a grimace. "The difficult child. But I didn't time-travel to talk about sister screw-up, I came to talk you out of throwing your life away on Logan."

"Uh huh, and how would marrying him be the end of my life?"

"Rory, twenty years from now you're not Christiane Amanpour, you're Mrs. Logan Huntzberger."

"Meaning?"

Mike scrubbed a hand through his hair in apparent frustration. "Meaning you made so many sacrifices for him that you lost Rory Gilmore along the way. Just before your marriage you passed up a huge job opportunity because he needed to relocate for work. Two years after that you left your mediocre newspaper job to go on maternity leave and you _never went back_. Get it?"

"I would absolutely not-"

"But you did, Rory. And you know why? Because Logan wanted his kids to have at least one attentive parent -- like he never had -- and with him away on business all the time, you agreed to stay home for a few years."

Thoroughly indignant now, Rory defended the man she loved. "Logan would never ask me to sacrifice my career for him, and he would definitely not work all the time. His biggest fear is him turning into his father but you make him sound exactly like Mitchum." Mike shrugged and frowned almost sadly. "That's because he is. Mitchum died from a heart attack five years into your marriage and left his empire to Logan."

Rory smiled as a realization hit her: Mitchum was too mean to die. She was listening to this…this _illusion_ as if he were actually her brother from the future. She was probably just overly tired and stressed, and that was causing this daydream. She decided to humour her imaginary brother. "So what happens next?" Mike regarded her suspiciously but continued on. "The kids got older and you felt you'd been out of the game too long to jump back in, so you joined a couple of committees. Broke mom's heart," he shook his head as if to loosen the bad memory. "Now, in my time, I mean, you're a Society Wife in a rocky marriage." Rory snorted at the absurdity of it. "There's no way I would let myself hit bottom like that. That's just not like me."

"People change. You certainly did."

"That was a great story and all, but I just don't believe you. I mean, my mother would never name her kid _Mike_." He was unoffended and smirked. "They named me after Dad's grandfather; the one who left him all the cash."

"I'd like you to leave now."

"Just promise me that you'll think about it. At the very least, give yourself a long engagement and some time to spread your wings." He started to disappear, causing Rory to blink in disbelief once again. Mike winked at her. "See ya in the future, sis." And then he was gone. Rory closed her eyes and took a deep breath as if to cleanse her mind of the major hallucination she'd just had. When she opened them again, she found herself staring at the glowing numbers on her alarm clock. "A dream," she breathed and rolled over in her bed. "Of course it was just a dream. _Mike_," she said with a laugh. "Yeah, right." Lorelai would get a huge kick of the whole thing when Rory met her for lunch. When she found the half-eaten spaghetti on her counter, she decided that she must have eaten it before bed and that had caused the whole thing.

When Logan proposed to her after graduation as predicted, the dream cast a shadow over the entire day. She accepted and never told him, of course, but didn't quite know how to explain it away to herself.

When Lorelai and Christopher announced they were expecting a baby in the midst of her wedding plans, Rory felt sick to her stomach.

And when the biggest job opportunity she'd had to date came up ten days before the wedding, Rory told Logan with nothing but dread. He'd been thrilled for her but had regretfully informed her that his job necessitated that they move to Boston. That evening Rory threw up the contents of her dinner before calmly going to Logan's office where he was working late (which Rory objectively took as a glimpse into her future), gave him back the large diamond he'd had made for her, and went home to her mother.


	2. Chapter 2

It was ten years after Mike had come to visit her that Rory had another experience with a person appearing from her future. In that time she'd accepted that either her brother, now nine and already resembling his twenty-year-old self, time-traveled to talk her out of marrying Logan or she'd made the biggest mistake of her life based on a dream. She chose to believe the former as she was flying high in her career and had married a wonderful man who loved her insanely, and who she loved back with nearly the same intensity. She'd run into her old friend Marty five years before and had somehow fallen into a relationship with him, marrying him after two years together. He'd never asked her to sacrifice a single day's work for him, or to move across the country, or to stay home with the kids the were already working on having.

This time around it was her sister Gigi who popped in for a chat after Rory made a monumental mistake: she accepted an invitation to meet Logan Huntzberger for dinner. It was during a weekend that she was in his neck of the woods for a story and had had a fight with Marty right before leaving. She hadn't seen Logan in years but agreed to go with minimal hesitation -- she was married, as was he, according to Connecticut gossip, so what could it hurt?

A lot, apparently, because the second she laid eyes on his handsome face, doubt crashed into her with the force of a tidal wave. His casual, "Hi, Ace," and kiss on the cheek had her mind racing with what-ifs and _how could you have listened to a **dream**? _Instead she asked, "How's your empire?" Because it reinforced what future Mike had told her about Mitchum dying and leaving it all to Logan.

"My father left big shoes to fill, but I do okay." Logan shook his head. "To this day I can't believe the old man gave it to me. I think it's just because Claire insisted on naming our son after him." Claire, his wife and mother of the Huntzberger heirs. Rory smiled politely and thought of Marty's excitement over the prospect of fatherhood. Logan changed the subject smoothly. "So I hear you've lived up to your name, Ace. You've had an impressive career -- not that I ever doubted you would," he added with his most charming, disarming smile.

"It's everything I wanted," she said quietly and toyed with her glass. Logan sighed and the charm disappeared, leaving his face naked and almost vulnerable. "Why'd you do it, Rory? I can't figure it out. We had a great thing."

In that instant she wanted to say _I don't know, it was stupid. I miss you. _The realization that she did miss him was a shock to her system. "I had a premonition into our future that I didn't like." She said instead. "I didn't want to become your parents, and we were headed in that direction even before we got married." Logan was quiet for a minute, then said, "I know. I didn't then, but I can see it now."

That night Rory slept with Logan and then slipped out of his bed like a thief in the night while he remained oblivious in sleep. When she returned to her hotel room, the guilt already gnawing at her, Rory opened the door just in time to see Gigi materialize in front of her. She didn't recognize her at first -- this girl was probably in her early twenties with heavy blonde bangs and tight pants -- but it didn't surprise Rory when the girl greeted her with "Hey, sis."

"Gigi."

Her sister smiled tightly. "Good, I don't have to waste time. You really fucked the dog, Rory." Gigi's language didn't even make Rory blink -- somehow Mike's brief comments about Gigi ten years before painted an accurate picture of the type of girl Gigi'd grow up to be, and at fourteen-years-old now, she was already headed down that bad girl path.

"Seriously, if cute little Stars Hollow knew of your penchant for married men, they'd brand you with a scarlet letter so fast. Dean, Logan….who's next?"

"Look, I'm not about to sit here and let you insult me. And I can't help but think that you're probably the pot calling the kettle black."

"Hey, I may not be innocent but I'm not a cheater." The sisters glowered at each other for a moment before Gigi sighed heavily. "Fine, look, we may not get along that well, but I like Marty and I don't want you to fuck up his life. Don't tell him about this little indiscretion -- or any others you may have later in life."

"Why would I tell him? It would only hurt him."

Gigi shrugged. "Yeah, well you did. It crushed him, and the divorce knocked him into a depression."

Rory didn't understand why she would have told her husband that she'd cheated on him. This…thing… with Logan had been a mistake, a bump in the road, but Marty would understand if she decided to come clean with him. Her sister seemed oblivious to Rory's internal debate and pushed on. "Marty hates Logan, remember? Always has, and you turn around and screw the guy. Way to go, sis." Gigi's voice was dripping with contempt, and Rory glared. "Why should I listen to anything you say? You obviously don't even like me."

"I may not like you a lot of the time, but I still love you. Besides, you listened to Mike without even believing he was your brother."

"Because he told me things that came true right away."

Gigi rolled her eyes. "Whatever. He told you those things because he wanted you to change them. I'm doing the same thing."

"So why did you come this time and not Mike? And how _do_ you guys do this?"

"How isn't important, and because Mike got his chance. This one was mine. Plus he's too wrapped up in mooning over Martha Belleville to see straight." The mention of her goddaughter piqued Rory's interest. "He's seeing Martha?" Gigi snorted. "Hardly. Star's Hollow's other shining star barely acknowledges his existence. He's just convinced they were meant to be. She's big on Broadway," Gigi explained tersely at Rory's question about the shining star comment. "Anyway, I'm not here to talk about them. Just don't tell Marty, okay? You'd spare a lot of devastation, and not just for him. Think about your kid."

"Yeah, okay," Rory snapped as Gigi crossed her arms and disappeared. When Rory opened her eyes moments later to see the bland hotel pillow pressed into her face, she all but snarled into it. Had Gigi's visit been a dream as well? More importantly, would she take her sister's advice and not tell Marty about her momentary lapse in judgement with Logan? She needed real, corporeal, _trustable _advice, and there was really only one person she could get it from.

With a sigh that caught in her throat, Rory reached for her phone and called Paris.

Paris, of course, told her not to be an idiot and to keep her mouth shut, but all Rory could think about on the flight home was future Gigi and the size of her attitude. Rory almost wanted to tell Marty just out of spite, or at the very least to prove that these dream visits were a figment of her imagination.

But then she got home and came face to face with her husband and realized that her dream had been right: Marty would be crushed if she told him and it would be incredibly selfish to do so. So she decided to sit on her secret for awhile, and when she saw fourteen-year-old Gigi later that week at Friday dinner, she vowed to spend more time with her little sister. Weeks later when she and Marty were celebrating her newly discovered pregnancy, foretold by future-Gigi just before she'd vanished, Rory decided that Logan had been a blip on the radar and it would be best for all concerned just to put the incident behind her.

So, once again, Rory found herself taking the advice from a sibling visiting from the future and wondered if there was something seriously, legitimately wrong with her.


	3. Chapter 3

Five years after Gigi appeared to her in the hotel room in Boston, Rory received the last visit of her life from someone in the future, this time from her own daughter. She'd just finished putting little Lila (or Lorelai the third) to bed and was working at her computer when the chair in the corner was suddenly occupied by a teenaged girl with brown hair who was wearing a school uniform. Rory stopped typing instantly to stare warily. "I know my mother did not have any more children," she began after a moment, causing the girl's brown eyes to light up with laughter. "C'mon, Mom, don't you recognize me?" Rory stared again and shook her head in disbelief. "You're four."

Lila laughed. "No, I'm sixteen."

Rory studied her daughter, or the image of what her daughter would be in twelve years. "You're beautiful."

"It's the Gilmore genes. We need to talk, Mom." Lila jumped topics so quickly that it took Rory a second to catch up, and when she did she sighed and nodded in understanding. "I didn't think you just popped in for a visit. What did I do this time?"

"Well, you left Dad and married Logan Huntzberger."

"I did not," She said after a full minute of shocked silence. Lila nodded firmly. "You did. Who's from the future, here?" Rory leaned forward in her chair as if to get closer to the truth. "But how could I? I love your Dad and I haven't seen Logan in years." Lila shrugged. "My theory is that you love Dad but you're still _in _love with Logan." Deep, deep down Rory knew that her daughter's theory had serious merit. But instead she said, "But I'm _happy_ with Marty and you and my life. How does that change?"

"You'd never tell me -- you guys divorced when I was eight -- but Gigi and Mike told me the whole story when I was about fourteen. Apparently Dad thought you were working too much and becoming distant and all that, and he accused you of an affair. You got pissed and couldn't handle him not trusting you." Lila shifted in her seat for comfort and Rory waited miserably for the rest of the story. "Long story short, your relationship soured and you ended up leaning on Logan for support because he'd gone through practically the exact same thing a couple years before, and you and he hooked up pretty much as soon as the ink was dry on your divorce papers."

"Oh _god_," Rory moaned, horrified with the future Lila was painting for her. "Was he crushed?"

"Dad was pretty upset, but it was actually his idea to break up. I only came here to tell you not to marry Logan, not to not divorce Dad."

Rory's brow furrowed in confusion. "Wait -- what?"

Lila looked at her in a way that made Rory feel horribly naïve. "A leopard can't change his spots for long, Mom. Logan travels constantly for business, he's in the office late every night….I'm sure you can guess what comes next."

"He cheats," Rory surmised, unsettled to feel something akin to jealousy at the idea. Lila nodded. "Yup, and you know about it." She made a face of distaste and said, "But you 'still love him' so you stay. It's awful."

Rory frowned. "I sound kind of weak, don't I?"

"I think it's just guilt," Lila corrected. "Do you really think it's worth it to stay with a man who's pretty much influenced your entire life and still cheats on you just because you feel guilty?"

"No, it isn't," Rory said quietly as a realization dawned on her: every single visit she'd gotten from the future was in regards to not doing something where Logan was concerned. Don't marry him, don't tell that you cheated with him, don't marry him (again). It really seemed like the universe was trying to tell her something, and it was about time that she got the message.

"I mean, honestly Mom, Logan Huntzberger isn't all that great, and I could really do without the nightmares I call step-brothers."

Rory smiled at that -- she'd heard through the grapevine how wild Logan's two sons were already, and they weren't even ten. "Was I around enough when you were younger?" She asked suddenly and almost dreaded the answer. Lila thought for a second. "You were there for every big thing, but not enough of the little stuff." In other words, no. "I'm sorry." Lila smiled. "You can change that, you know. I'm only four, remember." Rory was about to say more, but there was a knock on the door from Marty asking if she wanted to watch a movie. She was about to say no, then glanced back at the chair where Lila was sitting. It was empty and Rory realized she hadn't just woken up this time around. Her daughter had visited from the future and she was still awake. It hadn't been a dream.

But instead of freaking out, Rory smiled and opened the door for her husband, telling him she'd love to watch a movie. When he beamed, she realized that she really did love Marty -- and Logan. She would probably always love Logan on some level, but at that moment she decided that she wanted to be Rory and Marty, never again Rory and Logan.

Halfway through _Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory_, Rory turned to Marty. "We have a great kid, you know? She gets it all from you." Marty kissed her and teased, "I am pretty great. Looks are all you, though."

"It's the Gilmore genes."

Nine months later, Rory and Marty welcomed a son into their family that Rory was pretty sure hadn't been around in future-Lila's world. She often expected to get another unexplainable visit from another time, but one never came and Rory figured that maybe she was finally doing something right.

Rory would never know that something in the universe held a special place for the Gilmore girls, because as long as there was a girl with those genes, she'd be getting a little help from mysterious visitors from the future from time to time.


End file.
